


things change

by outwardbound93



Series: everything changes [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Asexual Character, Canon Compliant, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 11:47:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6152685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outwardbound93/pseuds/outwardbound93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, it’s entirely possible to want to lick every square inch of your best friend and touch his arse as much as you want to touch his face, to want to sleep beside him and wake up with him and make him laugh till he cries, and not want to have sex with him. Harry knows this intimately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	things change

Harry swears up and down he won’t call. He actually promised Gemma that he wouldn’t call because he knew he was more likely to keep a promise to her than to himself, and she’d very seriously hooked her pinky around his before their ice cream order was up because when it’s the two of them together, they’re still five and nine, respectively.

So Harry doesn’t call, and he’s doing quite well on his own in LA and in London even though he feels a little like one of his senses has shut down, like blindness or deafness but in some other, less tangible way. And then he sees the picture of Niall on the beach with his shoulders red and sunburnt, and he can’t _not_ call.

“You are going to die of cancer,” are the first words out of Harry’s mouth when Niall picks up the phone at three o’clock in the morning. Actually, it’s three in Harry’s time, he’s not actually sure what time it is in Thailand.

Usually the best time for him to call someone in a corner of the world he’s unfamiliar with is the dead middle of the night, though, so he calls. Same as he’d call Grimmy back when One Direction actually traveled the world in proper tour buses, like they weren’t sodding rich popstars with their own fleet of private jets with a masseuse waiting onboard to rub down Harry’s bad back. Not that he ever said no, either, just.

There was something earthier, more realistic and less dreamlike, less run-of-the-mill, about riding around in a bus all the livelong day and just praying that the next album did alright so they could do it all over again.

Grimmy would listen to all that naff and then he’d laugh Harry in the face, or technically in the ear, considering they were on the phone. “My young love,” he’d said, ‘cos they could say that kind of stuff back then and people were only paying a little attention, not enough that Grimmy had to hire a bodyguard and someone to go through his email for him and sift the hate mail out, “just enjoy it while it’s there, because the glitter fades quickly, and then all you’ve got left is who you are underneath.”

And, anyway. Harry hadn’t really known what he meant for a long time, but Niall did, so. Maybe that’s why Harry’s calling him now. Because he gets it, too, now.

Harry pinches his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger and stares at the copy of People Magazine open on his counter. “Really, Niall. Look like a lobster.”

“Thanks,” Niall laughs. His voice is hoarse and he sounds tired, and Harry thinks maybe he should’ve checked the whole time difference thing before he rang him. “It doesn’t feel too good, either.”

“Well, of course it doesn’t,” Harry sniffs. He smooths his fingers over the glossy page. The picture of Niall and his friends is grainy, and the photographer would’ve done much better by adjusting the lens aperture or the light setting, but probably it’d been enough for them that the picture was taken. Nobody really needed to be able to see whether Niall was smirking or grimacing, or if his shins and the backs of his hands were sunburnt too, and his scalp, because oftentimes cancer markers like freckles or moles are hidden underneath hair, and Niall has so many freckles. “You should use moisturizer, too. So your face doesn’t crack like old paint when you’re old.”

Niall makes his voice sound scandalized, “Harry Styles, what are you saying about dear old Bobby and Maura?”

Harry laughs. “Well, they don’t look old, for one.”

“Weirdo,” Niall laughs. It sounds like a compliment. He launches right into a story about Eoghan trying to rent a speedboat so they could do a bit of parasailing and how he accidentally rented an all-wheel vehicle, instead, so they spent all afternoon trying to drive it all over everything and Niall was absolutely not paying for it when they wrecked it (they did, and he did) and then he says, “You’d have loved it, Haz. This trip, getting away for a little while, it was exactly what I wanted, you know? Like…”

Harry clears his throat. “To be normal again,” he says, low as he can manage.

Niall laughs again, and this time it’s soft and soothing, like Harry putting on his favorite sheepskin coat when it gets cold outside. It smells like every place he’s ever worn it, like hot dogs from a street vendor in New York and a strong cup of breakfast tea made the real way in London. His laugh sounds like a hug.

“I don’t know,” Niall says quietly. He drops his voice like he’s afraid of anyone listening in, which is strange, because Harry Googled it while he’s been sat here and there’s only seven hours’ difference between London and Thailand. “I thought I’d feel, like, _me,_ and I do, but it’s. I don’t know, girls still take pictures of me on the beach and the train and stuff, and anytime a dinner wait is too long, I know the lads mention my name and how maybe I’ll tweet about this place later or something, and. I mean, it’s okay. Just, I’m _not_ normal.” Niall laughs, but it’s not a real laugh. It sounds the tiniest bit like a sob. “Never be normal, that’s me.”

Harry clears his throat. “That’s what I like about you,” he says. It’s not a lie. He likes just about everything about Niall, but especially the not-normal bits. All the things that make him exceptional and amazing and wonderful, like the fact he can play pingpong for four straight hours without taking a break or play guitar for twice as long, or how he can things up with his feet like his phone charger or a pen when he’s too tired to get out of bed, or how he always remembers to order extra of whatever he’s eating so Harry can have some, too.

And, uh. And that Harry can touch his face or his bum or sneak across the hallway and into Niall’s hotel bed and Niall won’t comment except to warn Harry not to steal all the blankets or he’d wake up with his hand in a glass of water. Like Niall always got him without Harry ever having to say anything, although he doesn’t think he’d have had the words for it when they were younger and those things were new. Now everything is settled and familiar and made like home, and Harry doesn’t want to upset it when he’s not sure he wants anything to change.

Niall’s been MIA halfway around the world for a month and Louis’s got a baby and a serious relationship and Liam’s having a quarter-life crisis, and Harry doesn’t want anything to change. Yeah, right.

Mostly he doesn’t want anything between him and Niall to change. Mostly, like. Mostly Harry wants Niall to be squished in close right next to Harry, preferably safe inside his oddly-shaped heart. Harry’s heart is a little like a motorcycle, and Niall’s the sidecar, and it’s not – not like Harry’s the boss, or in charge, it’s just. You can’t give your heart to someone else and expect them to take care of it. They’ve got their own demanding heart to pay attention to.

“You like everything about me,” Niall says, ‘cos even if he’s not normal, he’s still Niall.

“I miss you,” Harry admits. “I miss you a lot, actually.”

“Couldn’t boil an egg,” Niall says fondly. “Why would you need to, though?”

Harry just hums.

“Be home soon,” Niall sighs. “Almost. Almost ready.”

“Okay,” says Harry, because he decided a long time ago that there wasn’t any point in confronting Niall with how he felt if nothing could come of it. Right? Like, if Niall’s alright with Harry grabbing his arse at concerts and touching his hair during interviews then that’s enough, that should be _enough._ It has to be. ‘Cos Harry doesn’t want more, even if he does want what he’s got more often.

He doesn’t really expect Niall to call till he calls, and then it doesn’t quite feel real, because he called in the middle of Harry’s early morning yoga sessions. Sometimes he gets up early for yoga and then he goes to do pilates or kickboxing at the gym Cindy Crawford recommended him. Sometimes he does yoga and then he sits around in his underwear eating yogurt from the cartoon and catching up episodes of Adventure Time.

“Sorry,” Niall starts, “did I wake you up?”

“Uh, sort of,” Harry says.

“Oh, yoga, damn,” Niall murmurs. He must pull the phone away from his ear for a second, because Harry hears his voice at a distance, “Would you lot shut the fuck up so I can talk to Harry?” and then he’s back close again. “Fucking idiots. Anyway.”

Harry nods slowly, because somewhere inside his head he’s still at the top of Machu Picchu, which is where he always envisions himself when he meditates. Climbing to the top of that monument felt like going to church did when he was very small and his nan used to take him, and how the church music used to echo all the way up to the rafters and the doves and the clouds and God, somewhere far beyond.

Harry remembers competing with Liam for who could shout the loudest and wondering whether God heard them any clearer for being so much closer, and then he sort of hoped not, because he hadn’t said anything particularly wise or thoughtful. Mostly he’d just been screaming “TITS” at the top of his lungs and waiting for Liam to parry with a “BOLLOCKS” that echoed almost as long as they laughed.

“Uh, so I’ve got a twelve-hour flight home tonight, and then I was thinking, I dunno, want to hang out tomorrow?”

“Niall,” Harry blinks. “I think that’s the most normal-sounding thing you’ve ever said to me. Say it again. Say it slow this time, I want to hear every syllable.”

Niall laughs out loud. It’s edged with a little sigh. Used to be, Harry thought that was exasperation. Then he’d asked Niall about it and he said no, it was resignation. Harry’s still trying to come to terms with that. “Bugger off, would you?” Niall asks.

“No,” says Harry. “I’ll buy groceries. Cook me dinner when you come over, like you really love me.”

“Get us a couple of steaks,” Niall says, then his voice drops away from the phone again, and the call disconnects.

Harry stares at the phone in his hand for a long moment, caught somewhere between the clouds above Machu Picchu and the sun room in his house in London. Like he’s caught wherever Niall is. It’s easy to joke about, is the thing. Niall loving him back, that is. It has to be, right? Otherwise he’d never get a handle on it, get his fingers under the edge so he can lift it up and peek beneath all those feelings he’s pleasantly refused to deal with for the last few years.

Harry loves Niall. Niall loves Harry. Nothing else matters, really. Not even how Harry feels.

Nick texts Harry to remind him that they’re going out eight times to make sure he hasn’t forgotten, and Harry finally checks his messages on the seventh text. He took a bath after yoga and spent all day on his couch with his laptop balanced on his knees ordering books online because he finally has time to read now, so he just sets his laptop aside and trots into his bedroom to poke around for the bright yellow shirt he bought specifically for the next time he’d see Grimmy. Nick always says that Harry dresses like a peacock, so Harry makes sure to, especially since Nick added trousers to his menswear collection.

“You look like a peacock,” Nick greets Harry warmly when he slides into the back of the car outside his place. The small flock of paps outside start flashing their cameras, so Harry holds his hands up to his face and pretends to take a picture. Sometimes he does. He calls them his firefly collection, ‘cos all these spots of light could be fireflies or starts in the deep darkness that’s a cloudy London night.

Harry loves this city, even though he’s barely spent any time here over the last few years. LA was always his favorite place to be because of the sunshine and the greasy neon lights and the shadows spread like a gauzy shawl over every streetcorner, and the way all that meant nobody was looking too hard at him. He blended in, like, with all his famous friends who were more famous than him. Like hiding in plain sight. A peacock amongst a sea of peacocks.

“Thank you,” Harry says. “It’s all for you, Nickolas.” He pretends to push his tits together and give Nick a sultry look, and Nick wraps his arm around Harry’s head and kisses the top of his hair.

Nick knows, ‘cos Nick knew everything about Harry once and he hasn’t changed so much except how everything inside comes out, and Nick’s seen all his soft inner gooey bits. It’s never seemed to bother Nick that Harry doesn’t actually want to sleep with him, or anyone, for that matter, so long as they can have a couple of laughs along the way. Even when the fans weren’t so good to him, and all.

Harry owes something precious and dear to everyone who’s dealt with what his life throws at them, especially because he knows it’s possible for someone to disengage and never look back. The worst part is, Harry still misses Louis sometimes. The way he laughs about the stuff that hurts or how everything he does it out of love, and how he used to have so much love for Harry.

“I should be so lucky,” Grimmy says. He stops trying to crush Harry’s head in the crook of his elbow and wraps his arm around Harry’s shoulders, instead, and Harry wishes he were. That he was so lucky, he means, not Grimmy, ‘cos Harry would be the lucky one.

Harry doesn’t say anything, because you learn not to say anything about what people usually pity. Grimmy’s got his own thing with Douglas now, and it’s. They’ve all got problems. Harry pats his knee. “ _I_ should,” he corrects Grimmy, whose face goes unbelievably delicate and breakable like a piece of fine china before he laughs.

“Don’t,” Nick urges him. He drags his hand down Harry’s smooth chest and squeezes his hip, and Harry tries to feel flirty and vivacious and all those other nice things and not so much like some kind of car whose engine won’t start.

He _does_ like these bits, is all. Like when they slink into the club and the densely packed mob of undulating bodies swallows him up like an anemone, and everything shrinks around him until it’s just some girl’s bare back smooth and slick with sweat against his chest, another warm body and hands squeezing his shoulders. The bass thumps over a Beyonce remix and the cherry daiquiri someone presses into his hand is just sweet and sticky enough.

He even likes the part where the girl turn round and she looks a bit like Lorde, a bit like someone Harry’s never kissed before, and she pushes him into a booth and climbs into his lap. It’s nice to kiss someone long and slow and deep, nice to feel like he could crawl out of his skin and into someone else’s.

It’s just the bit where she murmurs into his ear about calling a cab that he doesn’t like, because – well, because he hates the way saying no will seem like an insult, but he doesn’t want to say yes. He just…doesn’t want the next part, same as he doesn’t want to stop doing yoga or taking slightly tipsy midnight swims or go into the studio and record another album. Not on his own, not yet, not so soon. Not without the other boys’ permission first. He just…doesn’t want to.

“Sorry,” Harry says. “Came here with my mates. Can’t leave ‘em.”

The girl waits, hopeful that he’ll suggest the club loo, in Harry’s lap. Harry doesn’t let himself say sorry, because he’s learned not to be. Well, he’s trying to learn. It’s hard to feel like he’s made someone else feel bad but he’s trying not to let himself feel like he owes them anything, either, because he’s always felt that he does. He’s trying to grow up. Be normal. Figure out what his normal is.

It’s just tiring, is all.

Harry has two more fruity drinks and rejoins the throbbing mass of bodies on the dance floor, and the next time someone tries to drag him out of the fray or attach their mouth to his, he politely declines. Better to practice his awful dance moves and enjoy the quiet flirtation of what could be than ruin it with what it won’t be.

“Did you have a nice night?” Nick asks, too loud, in the back of the cab on the way home. His voice is hoarse from shouting over the music so much, and he has a truly remarkable bruise blooming on the side of his throat.

“Always,” says Harry. “Love you, Nicholas Grimshaw.”

Nick cups Harry’s face between his big hands and kisses him soft, on the mouth, just the way Harry likes to be kissed. “I should be so lucky,” Nick says again, seriously, so Harry gives him a smile before he fumbles with the door handle and stumbles out into the night. It’s drizzly and gray, because this is still London, and Niall’s sat outside on the steps in front of Harry’s house.

Harry draws up short.

“Hey,” says Niall. He stands up liquidly and brushes off the seat of his pants. Niall rocks on his heels, looking awkward and a little out of place and a lot unsure. Harry’s heart swells up like the Grinch’s on Christmas morning when all the Who’s are outside singing in a circle.

“Cindy Lou Who,” Harry says, nonsensically, and Niall smiles so wide Harry could cry. He fumbles the gate open and hurries up the walk, and of course he almost trips, but Niall’s there to catch him.

“What’s with that face?” Niall asks, wrapping his arms around Harry’s waist. He tucks his cold nose into Harry’s neck, just like Harry knew he would. “That sad to see me?”

Harry fists his hands in the back of Niall’s carefully pressed linen shirt. If it bothers Niall that Harry’s wrinkling his nice shirt, he doesn’t make any comment, just holds on tighter. “Yeah,” says Harry. “You and your ugly face and those knobbly knees.”

“Good,” Niall just says.

He follows Harry into the kitchen when Harry finally finds the strength to detach himself from Niall, letting out a low whistle while he takes in Harry’s new place. “Stylin’, Styles.”

It’s a smaller house than Harry’s last one in London. He figured out not soon enough that he didn’t need all that empty space, that he much preferred being someone else’s guest to have them in his own home, and that the less empty echoing space he had the better. It’s less lonely, that way.

“I’m thinking of getting a cat,” Harry says.

“Funnily enough,” Niall hooks his ankle around a barstool and pulls it out, “so have I.”

Harry doesn’t have anything in his fridge except cheese and eggs, so he decides to make omelets. Niall fidgets with the fruit bowl on Harry’s bar while he talks about the long flight home, and Eoghan drooling on his jacket, and how they almost missed their connecting flight from Istanbul to London because none of them ever learned any Turkish, and it’s. Harry leans against the bar while the eggs are cooking just to watch Niall talk. The tips of his ears and his nose and his cheeks are all pink, and his skin is so pale and soft-looking, and it’s everything Harry can do not to reach out and touch his face, slide the tips of his fingers under the frame of Niall’s glasses to touch the tips of his dark blond eyelashes.

Harry’s been staring at Niall in reverent silence for probably too long when Niall says, “Harry,” and Harry realizes Niall’s not even been talking. He pops one cuticle into his mouth and starts chewing. “Alri’?”

“Yes,” says Harry. He blinks. Oh, the eggs must be burning. He turns back to the skillet just in time to keep the eggs from frying to the bottom of the pan, and then he flips the omelet with one expert flick of his wrist.

“Look at that,” Niall says, his blue eyes so bright and familiar, soft-looking. “What do you need to know how to boil an egg for, anyway?”

They eat their late-night snack mostly in silence, because Harry’s brain is finally catching up to his heart – or vice versa, it’s quite hard to tell them apart when they’re mostly the same thing, for Harry – and he can’t quite believe Niall’s sat next to him in his kitchen in London. He thought. Well, he didn’t really believe, but he’d wondered if maybe he’d never see Niall again. Sometimes life is like that, carries you and someone you love apart like leaves on a stream current, so quietly and subtly you almost don’t realize it’s happened at all.

Maybe Harry was wondering if Niall wanted to let him go, too. Like a little kid growing out of their favorite toy, setting it aside and finding a new favorite. Harry’s started to feel a little like a one-eyed teddy bear, is all.

Harry shows Niall to the guest bedroom, where he looks around and nods approvingly. “Nice, Harold.” He lingers in the doorway a moment, looking at Harry like – oh, Harry doesn’t know. He’s just projecting, hoping so hard that he sees what he wants to see. He wants to see Niall looking at him like he can’t _not_ , same as Harry does Niall. That’s probably not fair to him.

“Goodnight,” says Harry, and makes himself take a step back. Niall quietly closes the door, so Harry wanders off down the hall to his own room. He doesn’t quite know what to do with himself when he gets there, and the alcohol has worn off enough that he’s mostly just started to feel a little out of sorts, like he put down a matchbook and put it back in his pocket a moment later, but when he brought it back out someone had written a note on it. Something like that.  

So Harry settles himself down at his desktop, where he’s had a little electronic keyboard set up while he writes. He doesn’t write every day, not as often as he should. Usually he lets a song build and build inside of him until he can pull the whole thing out in a couple of nonstop hours, like a mother giving birth to a baby, maybe. That might not make a bad song someday, actually.

He doesn’t really want to write right now, though, so he peels his skinny jeans off and replaces them with a soft pair of trackies. He’s just tying his hair back when someone knocks on his door, so Harry shuffles across the plush carpet barefoot to answer it. Somehow, he’s a little surprised that it’s Niall.

Niall shifts his weight from one foot to another, biting his lip. Harry’s heart does that weird overheated, twitching thing inside his chest he used to think was heartburn. Now he knows better.

“Sorry,” Niall starts, “but, I sunburnt the hell out of meself. Help me out?”

“No,” says Harry, because he thinks he might combust. “Let this be a lesson to you. Wear sunscreen.” He steps back to let Niall in, and Niall goes right over to the bed and sits down. He’s not skin and bones, Niall, like Zayn was, or a solid hunk of muscle, like Liam. He’s slender and svelte and a little soft in some places, like his belly, and Harry just.

The thing is, it’s entirely possible to want to lick every square inch of your best friend and touch his arse as much as you want to touch his face, to want to sleep beside him and wake up with him and make him laugh till he cries, and not want to have sex with him. Harry knows this intimately.

Harry accepts the bottle of aloe vera Niall hands him and squeezes a respectable dollop onto his hands. He doesn’t bother trying to warm it up first because Niall deserves this, the bastard, and starts rubbing it in. Niall goes tense for a second before his head drops, and Harry would truly love to nibble on the bone at the top of his neck. He spreads the gel across Niall’s shoulders, instead.

Harry doesn’t realize that Niall can see his face in the mirror above the bureau till Niall says, “Look at me like I’m food sometimes, you do.”

“My delicious lobster,” Harry says, as seriously as he can manage. He hopes Niall can’t see him swallow. “My crisp apple, my vine-ripened tomato, my sweet, sweet strawberry.”

“Stop,” Niall laughs, and Harry could kiss him. He bets it would be sweet and soft in all the best ways, and that Niall would tilt his head back to catch Harry’s upper lip between his lips, because he’d want to kiss Harry back, and he’d let Harry kiss him till his lips got red and swollen and then they could go to sleep, just like that.

Harry smiles so he won’t cry. “Sorry,” he says.

Niall leans back till his bare back hits Harry’s chest, and even though Harry would quite like to combust on the spot, he catches Niall’s eye in the mirror. “Can I sleep here?” Niall asks.

Harry wants so badly to say yes. He says no.

Niall frowns. “Why not?”

Because Harry will be able to smell him on his sheets for ages after he’s gone, and he’ll have to know what Niall’s hairy legs feel like brushing against his under the covers, and how Niall’s chest feels pressed against Harry’s smooth back. You learn to live with the pain, yeah. You also learn to avoid it when possible.

“Never mind,” says Harry. “Yeah. Stay.” He crawls beneath the covers and watches Niall brush his teeth with the spare toothbrush Harry has in his medicine cabinet, because Gemma told him real grown-ups have spare toothbrushes. Niall swishes and spits, the long, lean line of his spine curved over the sink, and Harry thinks, He could have this.

Niall flicks the bathroom light off and slides beneath the covers next to Harry, who tries not feel so much like a limpet. He’s laid out flat on his back because he didn’t really think before he laid down, but now he wants Niall’s arm over his waist, and he doesn’t. Some things, Taylor told him, you just can’t have. Maybe this is one. Harry rolls onto his side.

He’d like to think he’s not expecting it when Niall drops his arm over Harry’s waist and cuddles up to his back, but at the end of the day, Niall’s pretty predictable. His socks always match and his cologne always smells good and his teeth are usually minty fresh.

Something soft and wet is pressed to the top of Harry’s shoulder, then again, right next to the first spot. When Harry realizes Niall’s kissing him, he goes tense all over, like something spring-loaded and ready to break. "Not," Harry starts, stops. Not what, he doesn't know. 

Niall hums. The bristles on his jaw scrape against the top of Harry's shoulder and it feels so good, just like Harry thought it would. "I know," he says. "Might've asked Grimmy, at some point." 

"Oh," says Harry. He thinks, briefly, about being mad at Nick. He already knows he'll forgive him, though, so it's like, what's the point? Harry the teddy bear is already battered enough, he's real now. "Love you a lot, you know. No matter what." 

Niall presses his cheek against Harry's shoulder, his stubble biting against Harry's skin. It doesn't hurt, but it could, given enough time. "I know," Niall says again, placidly. 

It's not everything.

It's a start. 


End file.
